Crowds and Identities: John Drury's Research Group

Blog Archives

By Sara Vestergren and John Drury. Most of us have some experience of collective action, even if it is only walking past a rally on our way to work, or signing a petition. However, our involvement might extend the casual everyday…

By Anne Templeton and John Drury. What is a crowd? The answer to this question has implications for planning, crowd safety management, and computer simulation of people movement. A common definition of a crowd is a large group of people…

By John Drury. In my work teaching crowd psychology to professionals in the live events industry, the topic they find most interesting is that of mass emergencies. In the first place, they want to know how crowds of people behave…

By Selin Tekin Guven and Sanjeedah Choudhury. On 14th June 2017, a fire broke out at the Grenfell Tower block in North Kensington, causing at least 71 deaths. The origin of the fire was accidental; however, the astonishing speed at…

By John Drury and Selin Tekinguven. One of the things that sometimes happens after a disaster is that the people affected by it campaign. They campaign about the disaster itself, about the social conditions that led to the disaster, and…

By Patricio Saavedra Morales. Recently, the UN Human Rights Office published an extensive report about human rights violations and abuses during protests occurring in Venezuela from 1st of April to 31st July 2017. In the document, UN officers accused the…

By John Drury, with help from Sanjeedah Choudhury. This week, the annual Hajj takes place in Mecca (Makkah) and the other holy places nearby. This Muslim pilgrimage is one of the world’s largest crowd events – the official figure for…

By John Drury. There is evidence that recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, which saw a mass mobilization of white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, and Nazis have served to embolden and strengthen these groups, who are now ‘bursting with confidence’. The…

By Evangelos Ntontis. Recently, the small village of Coverack in Cornwall was hit by a flash flood which resulted in damaged properties and possessions, closed roads, disruption, and required the rescue of several people. This was not a one-off event.…